Science

The first stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lands on a "drone ship" in the Pacific Ocean on Aug. 24, 2017, after helping launch the Formosat-5 satellite. This same booster will launch again on Feb. 18, 2018, lofting the Paz satellite for Spanish operator Hisdesat, along with two SpaceX satellite-internet prototypes.Credit: SpaceX
SpaceX plans to launch the first two prototypes for its vast satellite-internet constellation Sunday (Feb. 18), and you can watch the liftoff live.
The satellites are scheduled to lift off aboard a two-stage Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base on the California coast on Sunday at 9:16 a.m. EST (1416 GMT; 6:16 a.m. local California time). Watch the launch live here at Space.com, courtesy of SpaceX, or directly via SpaceX's website.
This Falcon 9's ...

Get the Mach newsletter.SUBSCRIBE“War of the Worlds. “Independence Day.” “Pacific Rim.” Hollywood is no stranger to tales of space aliens, and most seem to culminate in an epic fight to save the human race.But let’s say we discover space aliens not on Main Street but on some distant planet. Will we panic — or heave a global ho-hum? A new study suggests the latter response is the more likely one.For the research, a team led by Dr. Michael Varnum, an assistant professor of psychology at Arizona State University, analyzed the language used in and the tone of news reports describing three potential discoveries of extraterrestrial life:a 1996 study about the possibility of fossilized alien microbes on a Martian meteorite;the 2015 discovery of “...

Last week, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk launched his now-famous red Tesla Roadster into space, atop the first Falcon Heavy rocket. Cameras mounted on the car live-streamed the Starman’s journey for a few hours, giving us some unforgettable shots of Earth before going black. But if you want to know where the first car cruising our Solar System is right now, there’s a website for that — aptly called Whereisroadster.com.The website was created by engineer Ben Pearson, who’s been passionate about space since he was in third grade. “I read every book in my little library that I could about space and space exploration stuff,” he tells The Verge. The day of the Falcon Heavy launch, he saw that people online were asking questions about tracking the Tesla Roadster in ...

A team of physicists appears to have created a new form of light, one that could have some exciting implications in the field of quantum computing.In a study published this week in the journal Science, the researchers documented how they developed a solution where individual photons were joined together, much like in molecules, where individual atoms are positioned next to each other. As noted by the Smithsonian, photons traditionally do not have any interactions with each other, as they tend to travel by themselves as they pass through light beams.Working alongside fellow study lead Mikhail Lukin from Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor of physics Vladan Vuletic had long been brainstorming on ways to stimulate photons to interact with each other. In 2013...

For the first time, scientists have watched groups of three photons interacting and effectively producing a new form of light.In results published in Science, researchers suggest that this new light could be used to perform highly complex, incredibly fast quantum computations. The discovery that photons can interact could be harnessed for quantum computing. Christine Daniloff/MIT Keep up with this story and more by subscribing nowPhotons are tiny particles that normally travel solo through beams of light, never interacting with each other. But in 2013 scientists made them clump together in pairs, creating a new state of matter. This discovery shows that interactions are possible on a greater scale."It was an open question,” Vladan Vuletic from ...

In experiments, researchers created a new form of photon that can attract or entangle each other just like atom-sized lightsabers. The new photonic matter is also slower than normal light.
( Engin Akyurt | Pixabay )
Scientists have managed to get photons to interact well enough with each other to effectively produce a new form of light. The new photon matter has characteristics that are distinct from those of normal light particles.In a study published in the journal Science, Vladan Vuletic, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and colleagues reported observing groups of three photons interacting and essentially sticking together to form a new kind of photonic matter.The researchers said that the discovery of this new form of light may be used to perform co...

After he launched his giant new rocket into space last week, Elon Musk said he was spoiling for a good race in space. This week, he learned his rivals were up for the challenge, even when it involves such terrestrial trivialities as a cocktail party.Ahead of the second meeting of the White House’s National Space Council in Florida next week, a consortium of upstart entrepreneurial companies known as the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, which includes SpaceX, decided to host a reception for members of the council, who just happen to be some of the most powerful players in Washington. Headed by Vice President Mike Pence, the policymaking council is made up of the secretaries of State, Commerce, Treasury, Transportation and Defense as well as other top government officials.But when...

Tesla’s Model 3 is the company’s long-anticipated move into mainstream cars, and it’s been slowly reaching customers since last fall. I’ve been eager to drive one for a while now, and I finally got the chance earlier this week when Tesla lent us a Model 3 for a few hours.Because the Model 3 is basically a rolling gadget with almost everything controlled by the center-mounted 15-inch touchscreen, I asked Circuit Breaker’s Ashley Carman to hop in and see if a gadget reporter could figure out how to use it without any instructions. Actual Model 3 customers will get instructions when their car is delivered, and I think that’s important. The screen makes sense once you sort it out, but it’s not immediately intuitive because it’s just so differe...